"You're Superman... and you're not going to save me."

A bit late to the game, I know, but we finally caught up with Iron Man 3 last night, and were pleasantly surprised. I think it helped that my expectations had been set so low, just by virtue of this being the third in a series, that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

(as usual, movie discussion = spoilers, on the off chance I'm not the only person who hadn't seen it)

A few things I especially liked: One, it was set at Christmas. When was the last time we had a Christmas action movie? I'm looking forward to watching it on a double-bill with Die Hard. Two, the movie anticipated our expectations being low. It introduced the cliche of the middle-eastern bad guy, and we just groaned and rolled our eyes, because what do you expect from the third in a franchise? So when it played its cute little twist, it was a genuine and pleasing surprise. Three, it had a precocious kid who didn't make me want to throw things at the TV, which is a total rarity.

Also, it had one sequence I really liked. It was the utterly ridiculous stunt where Air Force One gets depressurised and all the presidential staff get slooped out at ten thousand feet. Again, I liked it because it confounded my expectations. As soon as the civilian-slooping started, I thought, "that's a bit harsh, what have those poor incidental characters done to deserve that?" because I figured they had already been written out of the script. I expected Tony Stark to maybe save the plane then continue his search for the president. What I didn't expect was for him to jump out of the plane and save everyone.

Why not? After all, it's exactly what a superhero would do. It's exactly what we should expect from a superhero. And yet... so many superheroes in recent movies have become worryingly blase about human life. Too often, incidental civilians die without anyone giving them a second thought. As much as I loved Avengers Assemble, how many people died during the awesome final battle? What about the end sequence of Star Trek: Into Darkness? And don't even get me started on Man of Steel.

So it was surprising and refreshing to see Iron Man acting like a superhero and rescuing the eleven hapless civilians, even if it was one of the more ridiculous sequences in recent times (I was also tickled when, on watching the special features, we realised how many times they had to shove those poor stuntpeople out of a plane in order to get the necessary shots).

If you want my opinion (and if you don't, why the heck are you reading my blog?), superheroes are, by definition, more than human in physical terms, and therefore, it's what they do (or don't do) that defines their humanity. Clark Kent spends half his life working a nine-to-five job and being normal, even though he obviously doesn't have to. Bruce Banner has to literally struggle to be a person rather than a monster. If you're a mutant, how can you prove to yourself and the world that you're still human at heart?

One of my favourite issues of Garth Ennis' superlative Hitman comic involved Tommy Monaghan meeting Superman. It was a coincidental meeting, on a rooftop in the Cauldron. Supes was, at that time, agonising over a recent incident where he'd gone to rescue a space shuttle that was about to explode. He had saved the shuttle and all of the crew... except for one astronaut, who he'd thought was already lost. By the time he realised the man was still alive, trapped outside the shuttle, it was too late to save him.

The story illustrated that Superman can't save everyone. But he has to try, because he's Superman, and if he fails, he has to at least acknowledge the fact that he's failed. Superheroes can't be careless about human life, not if they want to retain their own humanity.

I'm on my soap box a little, so I'll stop, but this is something I feel quite strongly about (not sure if you can tell). We shouldn't be surprised when heroes act like heroes. Shane Black apparently gets that. Someone needs to go tell Zach Snyder.

I'll lend them a big stick to reinforce their point, if it helps.